Simone de Beauvoir, the French feminist, argued that women should not be content with investing the meaning of their lives in their husbands and sons, as patriarchy encourages them to do.[break]
Another feminist, Hélène Cixous, has argued that women themselves are the source of power, energy, and life itself. Therefore, they need a new, feminine language that undermines or eliminates the patriarchal binary thinking that oppresses and silences women.
Similarly, Luce Irigaray believes that women-only groups are necessary for the development of non-patriarchal ways of thinking and speaking.
In her own way, Julia Kristeva, the renowned French psycho-feminist, has argued that women should use such creative means as art and literature which allow them a new way to relate to the semiotic aspects of language – sound, tone of voice, volume, and for lack of a better word, musicality – that allow them to overcome the stranglehold patriarchy has on the way women and men think.
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It is by following a composite course that Sheeba Shah, a Nepali writer in English, has made an attempt to liberate Nepali women from the labyrinth of patriarchy through her beautiful novel, “Facing My Phantoms.”
Sanjeevani, the protagonist in the novel, is driven by the spirit of getting beyond patriarchy: first, to liberate herself from the patriarchic domination, and thereby the women of her society. Sanjeevani is called Sanju in the paternal language of her society. She understands the patriarchal definition of a woman from her family’s setup, and abhors it. She feels pity on the docile and submissive role of her own mother in the family.
When her parents restrict her from enjoying freedom, like her brother Sanjay does, in their teenage years, she feels jealous of male freedom and becomes rebellious. Though her family members keep on accusing her of social mischief, she carries on breaking the patriarchal impositions, one after another, as she grows up. She breaks her patriarchal engagement with Nabin and rejoices her selfless love with Rajat and Chandra in a carefree state of liberation.
Obviously, Sanjeevani must face several obstacles that trigger her suicidal notes on her long way to the final destination. The phenomena in her life, such as the midnight murder of her brother by the Maoists in the feudal family mansion in Ganeshpur, the death of her Thula Buwa (father’s elder brother), the temporary physical breakups from Rajat – her urban Marwari lover – and Chandra – the local Tharu Maoist guerilla – and the exclusion from her family as a social misfit are some of the causes of her suicidal phantoms.
In spite of these phantoms, however, she succeeds on her way to liberation through her self-confidence, resolution, and hard struggle. Her temporary stay in Kathmandu, the capital city, further emboldens her feminist spirits. When she succeeds in obtaining her parental property back in Dhangadi and cultivating it for the community’s benefits, she faces the phantoms of her dream which symbolically mean her liberation from patriarchal domination.
She even writes the stories of such patriarchal victims as Sanat, Durga, Dhimni, Badki, and Sarmila Bhandari, and succeeds in publishing her wonderful novel which Professor Sanjeev Upreti calls “promising.” To the utter shock of the patriarchal eyes, Sanjeevani even gives birth to a son out of wedlock.
Though her patriarchy-bound kith and kin abhor her doings, she holds high dignity among the members of her adopted society because of her hard struggle and sacrifice for them in Dhangadi, and she lives an immensely pleasant life with her baby, fathered by none other than Chandra, the local Tharu Maoist.
Drawing her rebellious female character Sanjeevani from the quagmire of patriarchal violence upon women, Shah has called upon Nepali women to liberate their own selves from patriarchy, and achieve it not through conflict with men but through the negation of Nepal’s patriarchal system. To what extent Shah has been able to do so in her novel by employing the semiotic aspects of language, as Kristeva has suggested, is for the readers to conclude.
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Likewise, the juxtaposition of the narratives of Sanjeevani and Sanat is Shah’s skillful mastery of art in metafiction. What pleases a Nepali reader most while reading the novel is the way Shah has blended Nepali linguistic entities with English in a superb manner. The verses of cultural myths and patriotism further glorify the feministic search for the semiotic aspect of language. The metonymical abruption, in dramatic swiftness, from the present to the past in narration further enriches the novel with full justice to the characterization of even the minor players, along with the subplots in the novel.
Minute descriptions of the geographical locations of the events enliven the setting of the novel. The retrospective as well as introspective appraisal of the characters in the novel further reinforces the feministic attitude of the writer in the generation gap resulting from resistance to patriarchal bondage. The musing of the protagonist Sanjeevani over her total liberation from patriarchal domination creates an egalitarian utopia on Nepali soil.
Lastly, and moreover, the vivid portrayals of the socio-cultural transformations through the Maoist insurgency in the background of the novel give an additional strength to Shah’s feminist vision to get beyond patriarchy. In this sense, too, “Facing My Phantoms” is truly a literary gem in Nepali literature written in English.
The writer is Lecturer at Makwanpur Multiple Campus, Hetauda.
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